


Forty Yards

by the_most_beautiful_broom



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Battle, F/M, basically bellamy refusing to leave clarke behind again, lots of lots of angst, someone tell me why i cried writing this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-29 02:17:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15062852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_most_beautiful_broom/pseuds/the_most_beautiful_broom
Summary: Bellamy and Clarke are caught in the crossfire of an Eligius/Wonkru battle, and in the fury of it all, Bellamy refuses to leave Clarke behind.





	Forty Yards

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bellofthetolppl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellofthetolppl/gifts).



At first, he doesn’t know she’s shot.

They’re running from McCreary’s men, through the village, dodging when they can and praying when they can’t. Shots echoing down the main street and knives flying from the trees in retaliation; when they finally make it across the town square, their backs pressed against the side of one of the houses, there’s a sharp gasp behind him, and Bellamy looks back to see Clarke’s mouth is set in a terse line, and her cheeks pale. All her weight is on her left leg and she gingerly pulls her hand away from her right thigh, her fingers warm and sticky and black.  

Blood.

So much blood and he’s frozen for a moment. It can’t be Clarke’s, can’t be pouring out of her like that, seeping, draining her. But then she sways a bit, her eyes fluttering closed.

“Clarke—” he begins, panic thick on his voice.

“A tourniquet,” she grits, forcing her eyes open, focusing on him with effort “I need a—”

She breaks off and her head falls back against the wall; she whimpers like she can’t help it and Bellamy is spurred into action.

“Hey hey hey, stay with me,” he says, yanking off his pack, his knife slashing through the straps for something to tie around her leg. She shakes her head when he cinches it against her thigh, her eyes clenching and her hands falling to his shoulder to steady herself.

“Tighter,” she says, her voice laced with pain.

He sets his jaw and tightens it.

She hisses out a breath and her fingers tighten on his shoulders, but finally her chin dips. “Okay,” she manages, “that’s fine.”

She curls her fingers off his shoulders and then she’s ripping at the hem of her shirt; it comes loose and she rolls it into a tight cylinder. She hesitates for a moment, then her head dips as she shudders.

“What do you need?” he asks, voice deep and more pained than he’d anticipated.

She looks up at him, grateful, through the curtain of hair in her face. She brushes it aside, straightening, and one of her hands reaches for his shoulder again as she holds the cloth out to him.

“Could you?” she asks, voice shaking, and he takes it without thinking. Her other hand settles on his shoulder and her head tips forward, teeth clenched. “Okay,” she breathes, “Ready.”

He steadies her with a hand on her waist, but he still hovers over the wound on her leg with the cloth, knowing it has to be done, knowing the bleeding has to stop, but knowing it’s going to hurt like hell.

“For God’s sake, Bellamy, I’ve had worse; just do it,” she says, and he thinks of Praimfaya and of Eligius knows she’s right, but that doesn’t help.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, then drives the cylinder into the bullet wound.

Clarke’s fingers clamp on his shoulders and she makes a strangled sound; her head falls further forward, but then it’s done, it’s in.

All he can do is hope it’s enough, his hands on her waist, as comforting as he can try to be, through the fabric. Slowly, she lifts her head, blowing out a steady breath, determined to be fine.

“Okay,” she says, and they both pretend her voice isn’t shaking. “It’ll hold up till you can come back.”

His eyes snap to hers, as her words echo. “What’re you talking about?”   

Clarke blinks at him, eyes focusing slowly. She almost smiles, but then she curls her fingers off his shoulders. “Bellamy, you can’t stay here. The others need you.”

“And what about you?”

It hangs on the air between them and he can’t do it, can’t see her eyes blown with pain, her skin pallid, and ask her that, not like this.

“What are you going to do if I leave?” he amends, tries not to read into the relief that floods her expression.

“I’ll be fine,” she says shortly, “And it’s not like I can go far, so you’ll know where to find me.”

“You’ll be a sitting target.”

“Then you’d better go quickly.”

“Clarke—”

“I’m not fighting you on this, Bellamy.” Her voice is sharp but it’s tired, and her eyes slide shut. “How many rounds do you have left?”

“Six,” he says automatically, and one of her eyes squints open.

“Seriously?”

“Two,” he admits, shuffling the rifle in his hands. “But I can pick up more as I go.”

“Kind of hard to do that when you’re lugging dead weight.”

“You’re not—”

“I am,” she snaps, “that’s exactly what I am right now; that’s nothing personal, it’s just what I am. I can’t stand on my own, much less...”

She trails off, and again, there’s the short shake of her head. And the look on her face is so resigned, so committed, determined, that Bellamy can’t stand it.

“Okay,” he says quickly, to divert himself and pacify her. “Okay, so I’ll stay here.”

“Like hell you will—“

“We’ll let them come to us,” he continues determinedly, “wait for them to round the corner and then—“

“Bellamy!”

Her voice cracks above the gunfire and he can’t look at her. He feels the panic, familiar at this point, rising inside of him. And around them it’s green and daytime, but when he closes his eyes, he swears he can smell the sterility of the lab. He can see orange of jumpsuits, he can hear her telling him to hurry...His jaw clenches and he stares at the ground beneath them, fighting it.

“We’re wasting time,” she says, not understanding the change in him, but her voice gentle all the same. “You need to go.”

He shakes his head at the ground, wondering when air felt hollow again, and his pulse pounding in his ears. “I’m not—“

“You are. We don’t have time for this.”

She doesn’t get it; doesn’t see what this would mean to walk away, to promise himself he’d come back again. “Clarke, you don’t understand—“

“You need to go before—“

“I’m not leaving you again!”

He doesn’t mean to shout it, doesn’t know he has until he looks up to see her flinch at his words. And once her eyes fix on his, he knows he’s done. Knows she can read everything in them, see how terrified, absolutely petrified he is to lose her again.

She makes a sound like she understands, or maybe she’s just remember the bullet in her leg and her eyes drop.

“It...it’s not like that,” she says slowly, eyes on the ground.

“It’s exactly like that,” he says, his voice sounding shot to his own ears.

They’re quiet then, the whizzing of bullets and shouted orders reverberating around the village, but not in their alleyway. In their alleyway, it’s unspoken and it’s silent and it’s brutal.

Then he hears a crack and Clarke’s eyes widen as she looks at something over his shoulder. The window just over her head shatters, and Clarke grabs the gun out of his holster, ducking under his arm and aiming. She fires twice—one, two—and then there’s a cry and the sound of a man falling. All of this, Bellamy registers like it’s happening around them, in a mirror, apart or adjacent to them. Because before the Eligius man falls, before Clarke fires, before the window shatters, there’s a prick in his shoulder. And for a moment he’s stunned, but then it ignites, and it’s roaring pain, ripping through his shoulder and Bellamy looks down at his chest at the exit wound.

“Well damn,” he mutters, and Clarke straightens at it, her eyes taking in the crease in his forehead and heavy breath and then falling to his chest.

She stops breathing.

For a moment, she just stares at the bullet wound, standing completely still, frozen, expression unreadable. Then something passes behind her face and she reaches for his shoulder, pulling to make him turn his back to her. He feels her touch right at the entry wound and he flinches away automatically.

She lets out a sharp breath after that and he supposes he should be glad she’s breathing again, but he’s not exactly thrilled with the circumstances.

“It’s clean,” she says quietly, tapping his shoulder so he knows he can turn back. “In and out, straight through muscle. Can you move your hand?”

It hurts like anything, but he flexes his fingers to demonstrate.

“Okay, that’s good,” she says quietly, more to herself than to him. “Do you have anything to put over it?”

He’s sure he does, somewhere, so he fishes around in the backpack till he comes up with an old tshirt, that he presses unceremoniously to his chest. She looks for a moment like she might protest, then she reaches up, taking the tshirt from him. Folds it tightly, compact, presses it over his chest and moves his hand over hers to cover it.

“Good,” she repeats, tired. “Now, go.”

And she still doesn’t get it, still doesn’t understand that he is incapable of leaving her behind again. But as he shakes his head, she suddenly looks angry. She pushes herself off the wall, stepping closer to him, her feet unsteady, but not her eyes. They’re strong and they’re blazing, and she lifts a hand to point at the cloth on his shoulder.

“This,” she says, swallowing quickly, “is because of me. I told you to go, and you stayed.”

“If I hadn’t—”

“Then he,” she jerks her hand away, to point to the crumpled body behind him in the grass, “would still be where he is. But you’d be fine. After everything, you are not—”

She breaks off, looking away from him, down at her leg, grounding herself. He can see it, her thought process: find the pain, feel it, lean into it, only that. She looks back up at him, eyes clear.

“You are not dying because of me,” she says, voice steady. “You’re out of bullets, Bellamy. You have to go, now.”

They’re at an impasse, then. Him refusing to go, and her refusing to let him stay.

She needs to rest.

So he nods, like he understands, like he could ever leave her behind, and she relaxes. Her shoulders droop, and her eyes hood slightly in relief, and Bellamy’s heart clenches. That’s how much his safety means to her.

But he brushes that aside, helps her back to the side of the building, propping her there. She leans heavily against it, squinting at the roof of the building across from her, knowing she can’t close her eyes.

“I’ll be right back,” he says, and wants to say more. Wants to tuck her hair behind her ear, trail his fingers down the side of her face, or against the curve of her waist again. But he doesn’t, turns, and jogs to the end of the alley, pressing the shirt into his shoulder and telling himself not to look back.

The main square is littered with bodies, Eligius and Wonkru alike. Through two of the windows of the church, he can see the ends of rifles, bobbing methodically every 20 seconds, a glimpse of long blonde hair behind one of them and shadows behind the second. The doors of the church are open, and Zeke and Miller are helping kids and wounded across the square into the church, while Harper and Emori lay down cover from the windows. They’re busy on their mission—it’s one he gave them after all, and he doesn’t want to pull them from it. He and Clarke will be coming from the other direction anyways.

It’s only about forty yards from where he is to the back of the church, and there’s a well just in front of that. The church is the goal, but if he can’t get them there, he’ll settle for the well. The stones of its basin should be sufficient cover, and then he can get some of his people’s attention…

Even if he can’t.

He’s not going to just sit in an alley with Clarke, hoping whoever comes around the corner next won’t shoot on sight.

He ducks back into the alley.

His step is quiet as he comes back, not wanting to startle Clarke, but then panic courses through him when she doesn’t even look up. She’s still breathing, but the plug in her leg is soaked through and he needs her conscious.

“Hey,” he says, gentle to hide the desperate, hands cradling the side of her face, turning her towards him. “Clarke, hey, open your eyes.”

She blinks, slowly, eyes focusing on him, disbelieving. “You said you would—”

“No, I didn’t; I said I’d be right back,” he interrupts.

“I...” her eyes slide closed again and her brow furrows as she tries to make sense of it. “Bellamy, why are you back?”

And they don’t have time, but her eyes are pleading, and so open, and blown with pain, that he can’t pull his hands from her face. His shoulder is screaming at him, but he slides his hands down her neck, cradling her, his thumb brushing her jaw.

“I told you,” he says, slowly so maybe she’ll listen this time, “that I’m not leaving you.”

“You should,” she whispers, weary, and his fingers catch a bit of her hair. Still shorter than he’s used to seeing it, wrapped around his fingers like spun gold.

“I shouldn’t,” he reassures her, and he knows it’s true, waits for her to accept it.

“I can’t walk.”

“Then I’ll carry you.”

She makes a sound like a sob, and looks away from him, a hand pressing over her face for a moment. Her arm drops and she looks up at him, a shallow smile on her face.

“Your shoulder, Bell,” she says thickly. “You can’t carry me.”

“I can,” he says, knowing he will. If his arm were ripped off, if he had no other options, if it takes every gasp of air from his lungs, he can.

“You’ve lost too much blood.”

“So have you, which is why you’re coming with me.”

“Bellamy—”

“I am not,” he repeats, words low, emphatic. “Leaving. You.”

And she finally hears it, and he watches it wash over her, his assurances. Anxiety drains from her face, her mouth softens, and her forehead smooths. Her shoulders hunch, and she lets out a slow breath that seems to last forever.

“Okay,” she says softly.

“Okay,” he echoes back, giving them this moment. The square is echoing behind them, they both can barely breathe from pain, but they linger. Wait, hold, breathe, together.

He slides his hands from her hair, and they hang limply at his sides; Clarke blinks again, eyes still fighting for clarity.

“Okay,” he says once more, thinking, then turns around, away from her, one knee bending as he crouches. “You have to climb on my back.”

And she looks wary, but she’s tired of fighting or she’s in too much pain to question it, because he hears her unsteady step as she leaves the wall. A moment later, her arms snake around his neck, grasping him firmly, securing herself. He can feel her breath on his neck, shivering, and he lifts his good arm behind him. He can hold around her waist like this, keep her from slipping, but she has to hold on too.

With the pressure from her body, the intensity in his shoulder seems to magnify.

“Ready?” he grits, forcing the pain out of his voice, out of his mind.

“Ready,” she says, steeling herself.

He almost doesn’t make it to his feet.

Her arms are tight around him and he knows she’s doing her best to cling to him, but she’s also cutting off his airflow but what, is he going to tell her to let go? So he holds his breath and ignores his shoulder and curls his other arm behind her, unable to stop the gasp that rips out of him. But then she’s secure above him, and she sighs slightly in relief when his arm settles below her and he’ll endure anything for her to stay just that safe.

The first few steps are unsteady. She’s small but his shoulder is burning and so is his chest and then so are his lungs because breathing is impossible, but he has no choice.

Forty yards.

He can make it forty yards.

He steps out of the alley, into the square, the air heavy with smoke from the gunfire. The rifles still firing from the window, a few more bodies on the ground, interrupted in their exodus to the church.

Thirty-five yards.

The smoke is burning in his eyes, and in his lungs, and his shoulder is molten agony. Each step feels like he’s trudging through quicksand and he knows his progress is slow, but he keeps on. He’s bent now, at his waist, easier for Clarke. He feels her nose tucked into his neck, knows she isn’t looking. He can feel the flutter of her pulse against his, and he takes another step.

Thirty yards.

His vision is cloudy. And it’s not the pain and it’s not the smoke, it’s worse; it’s haziness that beckons with unconsciousness. He fights it back, claws it away, tells himself to take another step, another, another.

Twenty-five yards.

Almost halfway and Bellamy doesn’t remember what air tastes like when it isn’t thick with blood and gunfire. Every bone in his body aches, and he can feel his heartbeat from where it’s oozing out of his chest, from the hole there. He’s shaking, he realizes, trembling from exertion and exhaustion and he can’t feel his shoulder anymore, which definitely isn’t good.

Twenty yards.

Clarke’s breathing hitches when they hear the wind of bullets nearby; Eligius knows where they are. It’s okay, he whispers, you’re okay, and he doesn’t know if the words leave his mouth because all he can taste is blood and sweat, and then Clarke’s head feels heavier. She’s passed out, he realized, and the thought sends a jolt of reality through him.

Fifteen.

His vision doesn’t clear but the pain is back, ripping through him. He’s shaking in earnest now, his teeth chattering and he feels everything. It’s like the blood coursing through him is acid, his sweat is frozen, and each breath is like it’s being ripped from him.

Ten.

It happens in slow motion: the shot cracks from across the plaza and everything goes silent and then Bellamy feels the bullet lodge in his side, bury there, ignite there. His knees buckle and he stumbles, reeling, Clarke’s body heavy on his shoulders.

Clarke.

He remembers her, feels her, over the pain in his shoulder and now in his side, over the din, through the smoke, and he can’t fall.

Not here, not with her, not with her.

The well.

Head heavy and pounding, Bellamy looks around, finding it just behind him. And it’s too far, too small, but he makes it, yelling as he shoves away the pain and the darkness and the sleep that’re begging him to give in. He falls hard to his knees behind the stones of the well, not registering the shock, and torquing himself to lower Clarke.

He catches her.

Cradles her, lowers her off of him, arranges her in the middle of the well, her legs straight and her eyes closed, peaceful.

“You're okay,” he murmurs, realizing he hasn't stopped saying it, that he’s been praying it this whole time, begging her, needing her.

Her eyelashes twitch, but her eyes remain closed.

And he needs to go for help, needs to make the run to the church, but his side is throbbing and his shoulder is relentless, and Bellamy needs just a moment to rest, just a moment.

He leans up against the well, next to her.

Remembers another time they sat like this, shoulder to shoulder.

Their backs were against tree bark, then. Her hair was longer, then, and their eyes had both filled with tears.

The first time he’d known he couldn’t leave her.

Maybe this is the last.

Bellamy’s eyes close and he knows he can’t, knows he needs to fight. Needs to find something for his side, or for Clarke, or anything. But it’s like his bones have melted into the stone, and he can’t move. He turns his face to her, finding in his hazy vision blonde curls, soft skin, pert nose. Clarke.

Maybe this is the last, he thinks, and if it is, then he’d do it exactly like this again.   

In the end, it’s Zeke who sees them first.

Hunched over behind the well, Bellamy between Clarke and Eligius, slumped over himself, head turned to her. Their hands are twined together between them and for a horrible moment, Zeke thinks that he's too late. But then he catches it, the rise and fall of Clarke’s chest, and the way her hair is blowing softly with Bellamy’s breath.

He yells for the others, and a moment later, Harper bursts through the doors, feeding a new clip into her rifle. Zeke yells for her to get back into the cover of the church but then another rifle takes her place in the window, and Harper’s face is hard as stone. She kneels on the porch, the rifle an extension of her arm, no longer firing warning shots and no longer waiting. Monty runs out of the church, his arm lingering for a moment on her shoulder as he brushes past her, then joins Zeke in sprinting for the well as she lays down cover and Eligius men fall one, by one, by one.

Miller meets them at the well, then Emori is there too, and they four haul their wounded to their feet. They’re barely lucid but they check for the other, eyes flying wide in panic and then settling closed again when they see each other still there, letting themselves be carried. It’s slow progress across the square; Clarke’s skin is deathly pale and they really need to slow the bleeding from Bellamy’s side, but then they’re at the church.

Harper fires twice more and from the window, Echo covers her as she retreats back into the church.

They lay them down on some cots near the front, slicing open jackets and dousing wounds with water, then alcohol. It’s a terse twenty minutes when they’re stitching and searching and then finally a bullet clatters to the floor of the church, and then another, and the needles rest beside the cots.

They’ll make it.

Nobody says anything about how they had to run around their clasped hands during the operations. Because for everything that’s gone wrong, for the blood in the church and the bullets in the plaster outside of it, for everyone who’s fallen and everyone who has yet to, for the tears shed and the breaths held, for all of that, they let Bellamy and Clarke be. Because that much, they all know, is right.


End file.
